SDR-IQ Alternative?

[S. McArdle]

I've been thinking of purchasing one of these.  I understand it will allow u to record 192 khz of band spectrum to hard drive for later searching/replaying.  Are there any other, cheaper alternatives out there that will allow one to record this amount or more, of band spectrum to hard drive?  How about recording 2 separate bands at once to hard drive?  Thanks in advance.  Regards, Scott.

[ChrisSmolinski]

There's also the AFEDRI.

The netSDR, while certainly not cheaper, does have the capability to produce I/Q streams for two separate bands. I am not aware of any software taking advantage of this yet, however. I keep prodding the SdrDx author, but no luck yet. Maybe if some other netSDR owners mention it to him... :-)

[S. McArdle]

thanks chris.  a cursory check seems to show that the afedri can record way much more band spectrum, at about half the price.  i'll keep checking them out.

[desmoface]

I'm happy with the Afedri, you can see some samples of it on my youtube channel under "desmoface."

Steve

[thechoat]

I bought an afedri back before christmas and im really happy with it.I havnt had any problems so far seems to work great.

[Andrew Yoder]

Has anyone used the Cross Country Wireless SDR-4+? I think it also looks interesting:

http://www.crosscountrywireless.net/sdr-4.htm

[ChrisSmolinski]

Has anyone used the Cross Country Wireless SDR-4+? I think it also looks interesting:

http://www.crosscountrywireless.net/sdr-4.htm

It looks like a Soft Rock variant?

[BDM]

Has anyone used the Cross Country Wireless SDR-4+? I think it also looks interesting:

http://www.crosscountrywireless.net/sdr-4.htm

Note, it appears to only cover a portion of the BC band if that matters? Starting at 850 kHz.

[Andrew Yoder]

Thanks for the responses. BDM: I did notice that its range ends at 850. That's probably OK for me--at least pirates are currently on 1710 and not 530 kHz. CS: Is that a good or bad thing if it's a Soft Rock variant? I've been trying to evaluate what I'd need/best use. I had originally thought that I should pay more for a really good SDR--something that I could regularly record the European band range with and maybe be equivalent to an NRD-535, but lately I've been thinking maybe I should just go more into the Afredi/RF Space range and use it to supplement my analog receivers. As you can see, I'm not exactly an impulse buyer...

[BDM]

. As you can see, I'm not exactly an impulse buyer...

No, you mean a smart buyer Better safe than sorry with a product you dislike and wasted money

[ChrisSmolinski]

Thanks for the responses. BDM: I did notice that its range ends at 850. That's probably OK for me--at least pirates are currently on 1710 and not 530 kHz. CS: Is that a good or bad thing if it's a Soft Rock variant? I've been trying to evaluate what I'd need/best use. I had originally thought that I should pay more for a really good SDR--something that I could regularly record the European band range with and maybe be equivalent to an NRD-535, but lately I've been thinking maybe I should just go more into the Afredi/RF Space range and use it to supplement my analog receivers. As you can see, I'm not exactly an impulse buyer...

If you want to record a band, then this type of an SDR isn't going to work for you, the bandwidth isn't enough. You need something like an AFEDRI or an SDR-IQ / netSDR.

[Beerus Maximus]

I'm glad Afedri owners here seem happy with theirs but I did read some other stories about bad overload issues. It probably depends on your environment. I'm a NetSDR guy myself but that's 3x the cost of an SDR-IQ.

[jFarley]

I use an SDR-IQ, and plan to pick up an Afedri in a bit.  I am really not that concerned about overloading issues for the simple reason that I prefer to use highly resonant loops when possible.  This form of antenna represents a tunable bandpass filter ahead of the receiver, which goes a long way to protecting a receiver from the nasties.

[DimBulb]

Got my Afedri running last Friday.  I found that if I had the RF gain cranked up I'd get lots of images from local AM broadcast stations.  Leaving RF gain at around +10 with the FE gain at 2.00 seems to fix all the problems and still have plenty of sensitivity.

[zackers]

I have been playing with an RTL2832 USB stick SDR. These things are cheap and plentiful on eBay now. They do not use a soundcard for I/Q processing and will cover up to a 3 MHz bandwidth. The frequency range is given as 26 to 1700+ MHz. They do work great at 26 MHz but performance drops off fast below that frequency. I've been using mine with HDSDR and SDR# software.

I haven't tried this yet, but an upconverter may be a way to record a couple MHz worth of shortwave spectrum. Maybe convert shortwave up to to 40 to 50 MHz or even higher.